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Cleaning with fuel production-machine: Boon

This machine cleans your sewage and also produces fuel; the wonder will be a boon to developing world was developed in the US.

Scientists at the ACS displayed a machine which could clean the sewage six times better and also use the waste to produce electricity. Microbial fuel cell (MFC) being developed by Orianna Bretschger's team at the J. Craig Venter Institute, is a boon for the developing world.

Traditional fuel cells used on the Space Shuttles and envisioned for cars in the future "hydrogen economy," convert fuel directly into electricity without igniting the fuel. They react or combine hydrogen and oxygen, for instance, and produce electricity and drinking water. "We've improved its energy recovery capacity from about 2 percent to as much as 13 percent, which is a great step in the right direction. That actually puts us in a realm where we could produce a meaningful amount of electricity if this technology is implemented commercially,” says Orianna Bretschger, Ph.D.

The Abstract form the ACS Chemistry of life claims that, ` Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have long been explored for their use as wastewater treatment and energy recovery devices. Commercial applications of MFC systems have been limited by reactor scalability and low energy recovery efficiencies. Here we present results from an evaluation of a 100 gallon MFC system that can accommodate the removal of biological oxygen demand (BOD) and efficiently recover energy from municipal sludge. The system integrates low cost materials and an improved cathode design. These evaluations led to MFC results that indicate BOD removal and energy recovery from systems that cost approximately 50% less than previously reported 20 gallon MFCs. Acknowledgements: Funding for this project was provided by the California State PIER EISG program.’ (With inputs from internet- AarKay)